Lee Cusenbary is the General Counsel at Mission Pharmacal Company in San Antonio. He is also the creator of Ethics Follies®, a musical parody that uses comedy to raise ethics issues. The fully-produced Broadway-style musical combines San Antonio's business leaders and professional actors to engage the community. It is featured each year by The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) for their ethics conference which benefits The Community Justice Program. Lee is also a frequent writer and speaker on why "good ethics is good for business," and is a recipient of the San Antonio Business Ethics Award. In 2012, ACC renamed their ethics awards the "Lee Cusenbary Ethical Life Award" in recognition of his commitment to ethics in law and business. Learn more about how you can be part of a more ethical culture at EthicsFollies.com.

Note: This is an mySA.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by mySA or the San Antonio Express-News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

“I Can See Russia from my House!” & Other Ethical Challenges of the Communication Age

I saw on Yahoo.com that there was an interesting ethics topic about President Obama’s healthcare plan involving the economist whose data was being cited as support. So I did some research on the economist, Jonathan Gruber, pictured left, and his analysis of President Obama’s healthcare plan. Gruber’s analysis supported the financial viability of the President’s plan and presented a strong argument for healthcare reform. The White House has cited it repeatedly as support for the reform.

Gruber’s findings may be an excellent analysis. I have no idea. But the content’s validity was questioned when it was discovered that the Department of Health and Human Services was paying Gruber a substantial amount of money for his time working on the report. That would have been a good fact to let people know when relying on the opinion. Did the White House use a hired gun to support the healthcare plan’s economic viability? I’ll let you decide by reading the story by clicking here.

After reading the full story about Mr. Gruber in the Huffington Post, a conservative news source, it became more clear that free speech is both a burden and a blessing. How much conservative spin does The Huffington Post putting on the story? How do I know if I have the whole story? Would you have read my blog about the economist differently if I had written “he was paid to verify the President’s plan” rather than “he was paid for his time?” The reason I ask, is I’ve seen it said both ways in the media, and I think the first intentionally sets the stage to make the White House look bad.

Freedom of speech provided to Americans by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution It is the only way we can guarantee that the truth finds the light of day. But along with the truth comes so much other intentionally twisted and shaped information, that the truth is hard to identify. Even reporters who try to stay neutral have their own opinions that impact word choices and what facts to include in a story and what to leave out. For example, when Katie Couric interviewed Sarah Palin during last year’s presidential campaign, some believed she attacked Palin with a vindictive cross examination, almost as if Ms. Palin were a criminal. If this aganda were a conscious decision by Couric to damage Palin politically, it was clear that any journalism ethics of objectivity were abandoned and Ms. Couric decided to do what she personally thought was in the best interest of all voters watching the broadcast. There was no fair balance whether you liked Ms. Palin or found her to be ill-informed about foreign affairs, the decision was made by Couric to “make a statement” with her questions and use her credibility as a trusted journalist to damage Palin’s political career. To say that Palin didn’t need any help damaging her career in that interview may be true, but the point is Couric may have crossed an ethical line by taking her own polical interests into the interview.

We are living in the Communication Age, predicted by many futurists in the 1970s and early 80’s, like Alvin Toeffler’s Third Wave, with the historically unique problem of diminishing returns from information overload. By this, I mean that there is an avalanche of news, images, music and tragedies constantly flooding on to our phones and computer screens, and most of it is spun to meet an agenda. The way most people try to minimize the static is to select a source that they trust and rely on it for news. When people choose a quasi-news source that was designed for ratings and entertainment rather than simply reporting facts, it creates strong beliefs that may not be completely accurate. During the Presidential campaign, some entertainment/news outlets would not report stories that were unfavorable to the candidate with whom they were politically aligned. The Daily Show on Comedy Central has begun to fill in the gaps with some very clever news stories pointing out that CNN or Fox News didn’t seem to know these national stories existed. Funny, and surprisingly relevant from a satire talk show. You know the media is divided when a comedy talk show gets big laughs from pointing out the bias. I personally noted that MSNBC reported all the successes of Obama during his campaign, but has not been reporting his recent slip in popularity ratings. They may not even realize they are omitting that coverage.

However, it isn’t safe to assume that most Americans understand the difference between news and reporting for hype and profit. Glenn Beck has become a multi-millionaire for being outrageous, as have Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly. Many people take their points of view as factual, not opinions. Sarah Palin will do well in this venue as well and will enjoy a large following.

Speaking of Ms. Palin, there was some discussion last year about Saturday Night Live’s very focused and repeated attempts to paint Sarah Palin as unintelligent. I can hear some of you saying that’s not much of a challenge, but it’s significant in it’s huge numbers of viewers and coverage by other media. The skit seen around the world was when Tina Fey parodied Alaska’s Palin saying, “I can see Russia from my house!” It was one of the most powerful uses of entertainment to alter the perception of a vice-presidential candidate in the history of the U.S. I don’t think even Tina Fey knew how many people would see that skit. I laughed out loud, mostly because Tina Fey did such a great impression.

As folks who value our Constitution and the free speech provided by the First Amendment, we might do well to think about where we get our information and whether we have all the facts. My wife just mentioned she has to watch two different sources of news and compare the stories to figure out what is probably going on. As long as we all look for truth in news, we’ll find the truth …even in the Communication Age.